Truth
by Shadow Padawan
Summary: Bella's marriage is not a happy one.


Rodolphus knows of course, he would have to be a complete imbecile to not know. She had not wanted to marry him and she had made that very clear to both him and her parents. If it hadn't been for her promise to the Dark Lord she never would have. If it hadn't been for Andromeda she would never had had to make that promise. But Bellatrix knew that out of all things in life, love was not as important as family and honor. If she did not have honor, she was no better than a mudblood.

She can feel Rodolphus' eyes burning into the back of her head and the side of her face as she gathers her cloak from the Parkinson's elf. It is past midnight and everyone is leaving, politely acknowledging that with Michelle Parkinson's pregnancy she should not be over-exhausted by lingering party guests. She looks up in time to see Antonin and Edward shake hands in farewell and doesn't know if she wants him to look at her or if she dreads it.

He looks.

Bella feels the hot explosion in her chest at the same time as her husband's hand closes around her wrist. "Time we went," Rodolphus growls, his voice low against her ear and Bella can feel the burning sparks in it.

"Goodbye, Michelle, dear. Will you be at Cissy's on the 1st?" Bella says evenly, her eyes flickering from Michelle's face to over her shoulder where Antonin is still talking to the men, almost out the door, but not quite.

As soon as Michelle has answered, Rodolphus yanks Bella toward the floo and takes them home. She stumbles out of the fireplace, having lost balance when Rodolphus released his iron grip on her. "No need to be rough, Roddy. You never know, I may be with child." She doesn't bother to hide the biting mockery in voice. After all, Rodolphus knows.

"With child! What a farce. I know you take the potions, Bella." There is fury in Rodolphus' eyes as he throws off his robes; she can see his chest heave under the thin layer of his silk shirt.

"Well I told you I had no intension of having children and the potions are my only way of accomplishing that if I am going to continue performing my marital duties." She throws off her own robe. It falls next to Roddy's on the back of the sofa. They're both a deep, velvet black – a much better match for each other than Bella could ever be with her husband.

"One of your marital duties is to give me an heir!"

"Says who?" She could almost laugh. Rodolphus looks like an enraged baby dragon in that moment.

"You have no shame, Bella. You said you married me to keep your family's honor? Well what will people say if—"

This time she does laugh. "They will say nothing unless you go off flapping your big mouth. What are you going to do, Rodolphus? Spread society gossip? Only more shame on you. Run to the Dark Lord? He is quite pleased with my…contributions to the Cause."

Bella thinks Rodolphus might explode if he huffs and puffs like this for much longer. Not that she would mind, although it would make a terrible mess of their parlor. "Society does not approve of adulteresses and the Lord has men enough to fight for him."

Bellatrix sneers. "If you are so certain, why don't you take your chances then?" They stare each other down and Rodolphus finally deflates. The tension is still there though, but its fire is gone – it's bitter and icy.

"Is that what you want, Bellatrix? To be his whore?"

Something inside her snaps and before she can stop herself she's screaming and running from the room. "I would rather be his whore than your wife!"

She takes the winding staircase two steps at a time and hides in her bedchamber. Rodolphus could break the locking spells if he really needed to, but he is unlikely to follow her before he's had a glass or two of the whisky. Bella falls on the bed and tries to breathe against waves of suffocating sobs. What she said was true – she would rather be Antonin's whore than Rodolphus' wife. Yet she isn't.

None of the things in reality – not those in her fantasies – are true. She is no one's whore; she had been with no man but her husband since her wedding. All she has are looks and words and innocent touches. All she has are dreams in which she could be what she would rather be. Nor does Rodolphus truly care about whom else his wife might desire. What enrages Rodolphus is not her feelings for someone else, but the fact that she would not stay home like a good little housewife and bear him children. That she chose to fight alongside the men and does what she pleases to do, not what he tells her to.

If she was like Narcissa, if she was the sort of wife he expected her to be, Rodolphus would not care that when he comes deep inside her and she squeezes her eyes shut, it is another man's face she imagines.

But, of course, she could never be like Narcissa. Narcissa is happy.


End file.
